Mamoru Hosoda’s Animated Princess Tale ‘Scarlet’ Lands December Release From Sony

Academy Award-nominated Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda‘s latest film, “Scarlet,” has landed a Dec. 12 domestic release date from Sony Pictures. The film centers on a brave princess who transcends time and space.

Hosoda’s previous feature films include “Digimon: The Movie” (2000), “One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island” (2005), “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” (2006), “Summer Wars” (2009), “Wolf Children” (2012), “The Boy and the Beast” (2015), and “Mirai” (2018), which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards. “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” earned the inaugural Japan Academy Prize for Best Animation, while “Summer Wars” (2009) earned him an Annie Award nomination for Best Director and screened at the Berlin International Film Festival.

“Scarlet” follows Hosoda’s 2021 film “Belle”, which premiered at Cannes and became his highest-grossing film to date. “For more than 20 years, Hosoda has been refining a vision of the way that virtual realms extend, enhance and complicate modern life,” Variety‘s Peter Debruge wrote in his review of “Belle.” “Hosoda packs an Imax-worthy level of detail into his depiction of a vast parallel world/playground, which looks like a cross between a noir-and-neon ‘Matrix’-like megacity and a dust mote’s view of a PC motherboard, where chips loom like skyscrapers in the background.”

Sony Pictures is co-producing and co-financing the film with Studio CHIZU and Nippon TV. Sony Pictures will distribute Scarlet globally, with Toho distributing the film theatrically in Japan. Producers are Yuichiro Saito (Studio CHIZU), Toshimi Tanio (Nippon TV), Nozomu Takahashi (Studio CHIZU). The collaboration marks Sony Pictures’ first venture with Studio CHIZU, the animation studio co-founded by Hosoda and producer Yuichiro Saito in 2011.